The present invention relates to a detecting mechanism for detecting a vessel in which a pulverulent body, a fluid or the like is stored.
As vessels of the sort mentioned above, there are known vessels such as waste toner boxes provided in laser printers, copying machines and the like.
The waste toner box is designed to store the residual toner from a photoconductive drum after the step of transferring an image to a recording sheet is completed in an electrophotographic image transferring process.
If the waste toner is stored in the waste toner box to above a certain amount, it will overflow into the printer unless the stored waste toner is discharged or removed. If no waste toner box is installed, the printer will be stained internally if printing is started without the toner box.
In conventional printers, sensors for respectively detecting the presence or absence of a waste toner box, and the full condition of waste toner are provided. The problem is, not only the number of sensors needed, but also the complexity of their control system tends to increase by the use of plural sensors.